6th International Conference on Electrical Engineering 11- 13 October 2010

A Carrier-Based PWM Techniques Applied to a Three-Level

Four-Leg Inverter for use as a Shunt Active Power Filter
M. Elbar*,**, M.O. Mahmoudi*, B. Naas*,**, K. Guesmi** and A. Gaafazi**
* Process Control Laboratory, National Polytechnic School, Algiers, Email: elbar_yas@yahoo.fr
** Electrical Engineering Department, Ziane ACHOUR University, Djelfa, Email: kguesmi@yahoo.fr
Abstract In order to meet the requirements of
harmonic elimination and reactive power compensation
in substation, a three level four leg shunt active filter is
proposed in this paper. The use of three-level converters
allows a better performance of the equipment, by
reducing harmonics and the ripple of the generated
voltages and currents. The compensation algorithm is
based on
theory. This scheme requires the service of
a phased-locked loop (PLL) to make the system
insensitive to the distortions that are generally present in
the utility voltages. The control system is implemented
numerically using Matlab/Simulink tool.
The
performance of the proposed control approach is finally
discussed through the obtained simulation results
Keywords Power Factor Correction, Reactive Power
Compensation, Shunt Active Filter, ThreePhase Four-Wire System, Three-Level FourLeg Inverter,
Control Theory.

I. INTRODUCTION
Power quality has become an issue that is of
increasingly importance to electricity consumers at all
levels of usage. The utilities have a tight control on
the design and operation of the equipment used for
transmission and distribution, and can therefore keep
frequency and voltage delivered to their customers
within close limits. Unfortunately, an increasing
portion of loads connected to the power system are
comprise of power electronic converters. These loads
are non linear and inject distorted currents in the
network and consequently, through line drops, they
generate harmonic voltage waveforms. Power
converters such as rectifiers, power supplies and at a
higher power level, arc furnaces are all sources of
distortion.
Due to the development of custom power concept,
three-phase four-wire system will play a very
important role in the Distribution Site. In the threephase four-wire system, there are neutral current,
harmonics, reactive power, and unbalance problems,
so the conventional shunt power quality compensator
designed for three-phase three-wire system cannot
satisfy all the requirements. Four-wire shunt active
power filter provides an efficient solution to improve
the quality of supply in three-phase four-wire
systems. There are several voltage source four-wire
APF topologies: The first structure uses a fourth leg to
control the neutral current. The second one is known
as the center-split structure, in which the dc capacitor
is split to provide the neutral connection. And the last

Sixth International Conference on Electrical Engineering CEE 2010

one uses three single-phase full bridges which can

enhance the reliability of the compensator. A detailed
comparison of the features of these three
configurations is given in [1].
For the medium and large capacity power quality
compensators, the multi-level converters are
becoming increasingly popular. It not only reduces
voltage stress across the switches but also improves
harmonic contents of the VSI by selecting appropriate
switching vectors. The voltage stress decrease leads to
corresponding decrease of
, which can reduce
the electromagnetic interference.
In this paper, the four-leg three-level inverter is
used as the APF. Their advantages are well known
and the costs of APF based on the three-level inverter,
can be decreased by using the passive elements with a
lower inductance value, under the condition of
switching frequency equality. The additional fourth
leg yields a return path for the load neutral point to
regulate the zero-sequence component.
The PWM technique is employed to generate the
inverter switching signals and
theory for
harmonic current identification. The proposed
theory shows superior aspects both in definition and
compensation [2]. When the system voltages are
unbalanced or distorted by harmonics, the system
currents can not be controlled balanced and sinusoidal
even though the ac part of the powers and are
compensated completely. To overcome this problem,
the
theory need to preprocess the system voltages
to be sinusoidal and balanced waveforms by using
such as a PLL (phase locked loop) circuit [3],
extracting only the forward-sequence component from
the system voltages. Various circuit conditions are
simulated to show the performance of the proposed
compensation algorithm, such as unbalance/harmonic
source voltages and nonlinear single-phase rectifier
loads.
II. APF CONTROL STRATEGY
A. Description of the APF Topology
The FLFB (four-leg full bridge) which is based on a
two-level VSI is presented at early 1990s and several
controls with the topology have appeared [4]. The
FLFB converter has a better controllability thanks to
its additional leg. The FLFB topology with a threelevel NPC inverter for the three-phase four-wire APF
(Fig. 1) is presented. In the case of nonlinear loads,
zero sequence current flows through the fourth leg.

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Non Linear
Load
AC Power
Supply

Fig.1 APF for the three-phase four-wire system based on three-level inverter

B.1 Instantaneous

Strategy

In this method, a set of voltages

and
currents
from a three-phase four-wire
system are first transformed into a three-axis
representation, using the power invariant

(1)
coordinates, the system currents are
In Cartesian
defined in [5]. The
coordinates are rotating along
with the system voltage space vector

(4)
The three instantaneous powers are linearly
independent of each other. Thus, the three current
components can be controlled independently by
compensating for the three instantaneous powers
respectively. Moreover, each instantaneous power is
defined in the same way as for single-phase systems.
In order to extract only the current harmonics, which
will be injected by the APF, the continuous
component, p, should be eliminated. Thus, the
currents in
co-ordinates will become:

(5)

(2)

Where

and

In
coordinates, the system voltages are defined by
(3).The voltage exists only in axis .

(3)

B.2 Improved
theory
The main drawback of this theory is when the
voltages in the electrical network are disturbed by
harmonics and/or unbalanced. To overcome this
problem, this paper proposes to use a PLL in the
control loop [3]. The PLL generates balanced and
sinusoidal signals, perfectly in phase with the
electrical network voltages. They will be directly
generated in the
co-ordinates illustrated by the
following expressions:

The instantaneous active and reactive power will be

defined by:

(6)

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Eq. (2) and (6) give:

(7)

Then the instantaneous active and reactive powers

will be:
(8)
In

co-ordinates the currents become:

(9)
And the neutral current is equal to:

Fig.2 PWM synoptic block diagram of currents control.

III. SIMULATION STUDY

In order to predict the performance of the APF
using a Four-Leg Trilevel Inverter, detailed
simulation studies on Matlab/Simulink platform are
carried out. A 220V, 50Hz three phase four wire
system is chosen for this study. A three single phase
diode rectifiers feeding unbalanced load are connected
in phases and to the neutral (Fig. 3), respectively.

(10)
C. Harmonic Currents Control Using PWM
This control implements initially a proportional
controller which starts from the difference between
the injected current (active filter current) and
reference current (identified current) that determines
the reference voltage of the inverter (modulating
wave). This standard reference voltage is compared
with two carrying triangular identical waves shifted
one from other by a half period of chopping.
The control of inverter arm constituting the filter is
summarized in the two following stages [6, 7].
Determination of the intermediate signals
and .
If
If

Fig.3 Three single phase diode rectifiers

feeding unbalanced load

The converter ac currents are controlled with the

proposed control theory. The PWM currents
controller is considered. In order to show the good
dynamic performance of the current controller, some
simulation results are presented in the next figures.
The simulation parameters are shown in table.1,
presented below.

Determination of control signals of the switches

(
).

If

TABLE I
SIMULATION PARAMETERS

Supply:

DC Load:
If

If

=
Active Filter

220 , 0.1 , 0.6

,
=
,

20 , 40 , 40
5
500 , 0.1

Fig.4 shows the phase current and the neutral current

before compensation. As can be seen the phase
currents are unbalanced and non-sinusoidal
waveform. The neutral current is neither sinusoidal.

The general block diagram of control currents is

illustrated in Fig.2.

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76

Fig.4 Phase and neutral current

waveforms before compensation

Figs. 7-11 give, respectively, waveforms of the

system before and after instantaneous reactive power
compensation, where the source voltage is balanced
and has no zero-sequence components and the load
current contains zero-sequence component. The APF
filter is switched on at
. It can be seen that the
source current harmonics, current unbalance and
neutral current can be compensated simultaneously. It
gives balanced set of source currents inspite of nonlinear and unbalanced load currents.
The power factor of source current is set to unity as
shown in the Fig.10. The current THD has dropped to
2.84% (less than 5% IEC norm).

Fig.7 the source voltage

Fig.5 Phase a harmonics order

spectrum before compensation.

Fig.8 Phase and neutral current waveforms

before and after compensation

Fig.9 Phase a harmonics order spectrum after compensation.

Fig.6 Phase n harmonics order
spectrum before compensation.

The harmonics order spectrum of (Fig. 5) reveals the

presence of the 3rd ,5th and 7th harmonics in the phase
current, while the neutral current has the 3rd
harmonics as shown in (Fig. 6). The neutral current
generated by the unbalanced harmonic phase current
is flowing in the neutral conductor, and is constituted
by currents of harmonic and fundamental origin.
The current total harmonic distortion (THD)
calculated for the 30 first harmonics before filtering is
32.12%.
A. Filtering Simulation
Sixth International Conference on Electrical Engineering CEE 2010

Fig.10 Power factor correction

Fig.11 APF output voltage

The second simulations, Figs. 12-16, give the currents

before and after instantaneous reactive power
compensation, when the lines voltages are
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unbalanced, up to 5% but do not contain harmonics. It

could be remarked that the line currents are practically
sine waves and in phase with their corresponding
voltages at the PCC. The current THD has dropped to
3.51% (less than 5% IEC norm), and the source power
factor at the PCC has increased to 1.

Fig.16 APF output voltage

IV. CONCLUSION
The paper discusses the use of four-leg three-level
inverter, which can be used for the high power
applications and to reduce the THD in source
currents. The proposed shunt active filter compensates
the harmonics during balance and unbalanced
conditions, correcting the power factor near unity.
The harmonic currents are identified, based on the
theory. The scheme discussed here is also
mathematically clear and systematic, showing good
characteristics. The simulation results using the
Matlab/Simulink verify the proposed control.

Fig.12 the source voltage

V. REFERENCES

Fig.13 Phase and neutral current waveforms

before and after compensation

Fig.14 Phase a harmonics order

spectrum after compensation.

Fig.15 Power factor correction

Sixth International Conference on Electrical Engineering CEE 2010

[1] C. A. Quinn, N. Mohan, Active filtering of

harmonic currents in three-phase, four-wire
systems with three-phase, single-phase nonlinear
loads, Proc. IEEE APEC92, 1992, pp829-836
[2] H. Kim, F. Blaabjerg, B. B-Jensen and J. Choi,
Instantaneous Power Compensation in ThreePhase systems by Using
theory, IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 17,
No. 5, July 2002
[3] M. C. Benhabib and S. Saadate, New control
approach for four-wire active power filter based
on the use of synchronous reference frame,
Electric Power Systems Research, 2004
[4] O. Vodyakho and T. Kim, Shunt active filter
based on three-level inverter for three-phase fourwire systems, IET Power Electron., Vol. 2,
Iss. 3, pp. 216226, 2009
[5] H. S. Kim and H. Akagi, The instantaneous
powr theory on the rotating
reference frame
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[6] L. Zellouma and S. Saad, Three-Phase ThreeLevel Shunt Active Power Filter, 2nd
International Conference on Electrical and
Electronics Engineering ICEEE'08, 21-23 April
2008
[7] L. F. C. Monteiro, J. C. C. Costa, M. Aredes and
J. L. Afonso, A Control Strategy for a ThreeLevel Unified Power Quality Conditioner, 8th
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